An Unjust Law: Plato, Aristotle and Same Sex Marriage

[Murmurs]

Well, I suspect that you are an atheist with no regard whatever for any religious traditions, nor even for the fact that no civilization in the history of the world has ever countenanced same-sex marriage until our own lunatic civilization raised the issue.

It is tiresome to debate atheists because they never admit that the will of God trumps their own hedonistic desires.

Personally, I believe the double-size bed was invented for heterosexuals to have babies, not for homosexuals to lick each other’s genitals.

:banghead:

What you (or anyone, including me) “believes” about an inanimate object like a bed is entirely irrelevant. One can’t have a “belief” about an object anyway. The material matter of a double bed is a fact; it’s one that human beings have found useful to make because it’s nice to sleep with someone (whether or not that includes any kind of sexual activity; you can sleep in the same bed as a friend after all) - or because it’s nice to spread out on your own

And by the way, you can have non-penetrative sex (or any other kind of sex) literally anywhere. Including, and perhaps particularly, can duly and canonically and sacramentally married heterosexual couples. (And even plenty of, if not even most, Catholics will have oral sex, tyvm).

Our “lunatic” civilization which you find a bizarre reason to castigate, is also the first to properly articulate - and then actually enforce - the idea that one can say whatever one likes, no matter how much one might annoy people (providing you don’t overtly encourage others to commit a massacre or something, anyway); that it’s perfectly acceptable to fall in love and marry with anyone from across any kind of social, racial, cultural, (gender), or religious boundary; that you and I have an inalienable right to participate fully in the process of governing our respective countries (without the influence of corrupt practices); that human beings cannot be owned by other human beings, whether you’re talking about black slavery or the institution of marriage. I could go on but the point I trust is made, and one not made by an atheist.

I’ll admit this post has gone a tiny bit away from the unjustness of the law - but the idea that the law (if in reference to the US, it’s not a law anyway, of course, just to nitpick) is in any way “unjust” is so patently absurd that I am not going to dignify the notion by repeating what I wrote near the top of the thread…

 

[josh987654321]

This sounds fair I suppose, just at first blush. The facts of the matter still need to be analyzed.

Okay.

And equality is part of the equation. We always have to balance that when we’re dealing with aspects of distributive justice.

I agree, however, treating things equal that are not equal is an injustice I believe.

For example, I believe it would be unjust to call me racist because I differentiated between the colour of someones skin in relation to a picture I was painting. However, if I did so in regards to a job application, or voting rights etc, than that I believe would be gravely unjust, for the reason that the colour of someones skin has nothing to do with those things.

In the same way, I believe it is unjust to argue equality when it comes to same sex marriage and thus ignore or make irrelevant that unique role of a male and female, mum and dad, in producing new life through the fruit of their union and nuturing that life which is; to use a biblical term, flesh of their flesh.

It’s a good sentiment to say that every child deserves a mother and father.

I agree.

Goodness knows I wish my folks stayed together.

I hope you don’t mind if I say a prayer for you and your folks.

But it’s the task of sociologists to figure out what the costs (and potential benefits) of various family makeups. Once we have the date, we can consider the question better.

I believe any sociologist who denys the role and importance of a childs mother or father is wrong. Furthermore, I believe there is tremendous pressure on such individuals to sway in favor of one outcome, regardless of their findings.

I believe this is evident in the fact that so many people can study all about the reproductive system and somehow fly in the face of it, denying that a man and a woman’s sexual organs are uniquely designed for one another.

Note: I have no qualms with homosexual unions and allowing such couples to enter contracts and share estates etc, in fact here in Australia we recognise them as ‘de facto’ relationships, thus granting them all of the legal rights that marriage has, I simply have a problem with people trying to redefine marriage and arguing equality where equality doesn’t exist.

I hope this has helped

God Bless You

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[Pallas_Athene]

Our “lunatic” civilization which you find a bizarre reason to castigate, is also the first to properly articulate - and then actually enforce - the idea that one can say whatever one likes, no matter how much one might annoy people (providing you don’t overtly encourage others to commit a massacre or something, anyway); that it’s perfectly acceptable to fall in love and marry with anyone from across any kind of social, racial, cultural, (gender), or religious boundary; that you and I have an inalienable right to participate fully in the process of governing our respective countries (without the influence of corrupt practices); that human beings cannot be owned by other human beings, whether you’re talking about black slavery or the institution of marriage. I could go on but the point I trust is made, and one not made by an atheist.

But it could have been

 

[Murmurs]

But it could have been

Sure But a Catholic can as well.

Incidently, as this afternoon I pulled The Republic from my shelf and found the passage on women and the family, I feel that Plato’s ideas might be a tad relevant to the discussion.

Viz, that he envisaged doing away with marriage altogether, essentially, on these lines (VI.2; 457c-461e) :

Men and women (being identical in their capacities except that men are in general a bit stronger) can and should lead the same lives according to their abilities. If this is the case, the family unit has to be abolished, because it forces women and men into distinct roles for which their natural abilities may often not be suited.

The instinct to have sex, and moreover the need for progeny, need to be satisfied. Plato proposes what effectively seems to amount to fertility or mating festivals in which the best citizens are bred together, according to what in the judgement of the leaders will produce the most useful offspring. (Like we breed domestic animals). (And while this point isn’t relevant particularly, it should be noted he also strongly favours contraception, abortion, and even actual infanticide of the already-born, although this last certainly would have been much less shocking to his contemporaries than it seems to us).

The point is firstly, that Plato (or his contemporaries’) beliefs about SSM or homosexuality are a tad suspect if we are to apply them to the present. A lot of other things he articulates, are absolutely not things that someone who purports to support the institution of marriage and children, should be arguing (and again the mini-digression, but not even pro-choice folks today actually want more abortions, just easier access to them, though that’s way off-piste).

This doesn’t invalidate his argument about what constitutes a just law, of course, but one should be wary of applying a bit of his thinking without remembering the context in which is ideal just laws are being made.

The second point is that Plato’s idea of justice (V.1; 434c) consists ensuring that everyone “does his own job and minds his own business” (as long as, presumably, that doesn’t involve harming someone else who isn’t an enemy). Plato, who clearly in an ideal world didn’t think much of marriage anyway, would argue actually in favour of SSM. It’s clearly unjust for one group of people (those who are against SSM, usually for religious reasons) to mind the business of other people (gay people) in determining who they may or may not marry. This is, of course, one of the main arguments which the Supreme Court majority opinion used…

 

[Charlemagne_III]

God’s will would be respected, if he bothered to tell us about it. But he is just silent. If you think that you speak for God, you are seriously mistaken. I am aware that the church CLAIMS to speak for God, but there is no evidence for that. If God disapproves of our behavior, he can just “smite” the offenders.

This is what hell was created for … the unrepentant offenders.

As those of Sodom and Gomorrah whom God did smite.

Nor do we have to limit the argument to Church authority. All over the world, no civilization has ever even proposed the absurd idea of same-sex marriage until now.

What is your answer?

That somehow the whole world was always wrong and only the sodomites were right all along?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Sure It’s clearly unjust for one group of people (those who are against SSM, usually for religious reasons) to mind the business of other people (gay people) in determining who they may or may not marry. This is, of course, one of the main arguments which the Supreme Court majority opinion used…

Yes, there were three Jews and two Catholics on the Supreme Court who used that argument.

The remaining four Catholics on the court voted in the minority. And they were right to do so because they did not violate the principles of their religion and common sense by approving same-sex marriage as a constitutional right when the desire for it (same-sex marriage) is no more and no less than evidence of a disordered mental state. Since when does the Court have to carve out constitutional rights (never listed in the Constitution) specifically to accommodate those who are mentally disordered?

 

[JapaneseKappa]

The correct answer is one that you may not accept or somehow it needs to be presented through some line of rational and logical thinking that will arrive at the correct answer and in that manner you will accept it. That’s the challenge not the ignorance of the answer.

What is the answer? God and mankind.

Maybe against your god, but what about my god who happens to be gay?

First off, I am attempting to establish that according to Plato (and Aristotle) the SSM law is unjust because it is not good for mankind/society. I proposed that it is not good because in our wildest imaginings it could be the case that it could spread like wild fire and then what? We will keep the human race going with test tube babies? But, there are many reasons why the law is not good and we will learn more ways in which the law is not good as time goes by and we start dealings with the problems which will arise as a consequence.

Consider the role of bankers in the economy. If we imagined an economy consisting entirely of bankers, then what? No one would be creating anything of value! There would be no one to take silica and convert it into computer chips. There would be no one to research medicines or treat patients. The bankers would just be moving their money from one bank to another while slowly starving for lack of farmers and grocery stores. Therefore we clearly need to make bankers illegal!

No one would seriously make the above argument because it is, quite bluntly, a stupid argument. But for some reason, most likely some sort of religious zeal, people are willing to ignore the obvious shortcomings of this line of reasoning when applied to homosexual marriage.

Certainly, the law is unjust, it’s right on the Republic, it’s almost right at the beginning… Socrates establishes that it must be just for all and always. Well, is it just for the innocent infants who will be given up for adoption to a same sex couple? I **think **not. They are human beings and have a right to have a male father and a female mother or some position derived from the natural course of existence…

So because you think it is unjust, it therefore is unjust? The issue with this argument is that it hinges on the assumption that somehow homosexual couples are worse at parenting than heterosexual couples (or, indeed, single parents.) To try and argue this from some sort of first principles is to philosophize when you should science-ifize. If you think it is worse, you need to be precise and exact about what sort of harms a homosexual couple would cause to a child. The sort of sweeping generalities you’ve made in your post may get you lots of support from your church choir, but I don’t believe that you or your choir could precisely define and support with evidence the harms you are talking about.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Well, I suspect that you are an atheist with no regard whatever for any religious traditions, nor even for the fact that no civilization in the history of the world has ever countenanced same-sex marriage until our own lunatic civilization raised the issue.

Our lunatic civilization was also one of the first major civilizations to abolish slavery, and without the support of the Catholic Church, no less.

There is no danger — no possibility, on our principles — that Catholic theology should ever be tinctured with the fanaticism of abolition.

In other words, that our society is doing something unprecedented is not evidence that it is doing something wrong.

It is tiresome to debate atheists because they never admit that the will of God trumps their own hedonistic desires.

Personally, I believe the double-size bed was invented for heterosexuals to have babies, not for homosexuals to lick each other’s genitals.

But gay marriage has nothing to do with hedonism or homosexual sex. Those things are already legal. Gay marriage doesn’t change the legality of gays living together, or sleeping together, or marching in parades.I’m going to assume you’re a smart guy, and that you were actually using your above statement as a euphemism for the things that gay marriage laws actually change.

For example, you are probably disgusted by the thought of one woman receiving extra veterans benefits because she is “married” to another woman. I also can easily understand how Catholic theology would explicitly condemn two men from jointly filing for bankruptcy, as though they man and wife! Don’t even get me started on the tax free transfer of property between two female “spouses” when one of them dies. Talk about abhorrent in the eyes of the Lord, I’m sure this sort of taxation would have been commandment #11 if there had been enough room on the tablets.

 

[Murmurs]

Yes, there were three Jews and two Catholics on the Supreme Court who used that argument.

The remaining four Catholics on the court voted in the minority. And they were right to do so because they did not violate the principles of their religion and common sense by approving same-sex marriage as a constitutional right when the desire for it (same-sex marriage) is no more and no less than evidence of a disordered mental state. Since when does the Court have to carve out constitutional rights (never listed in the Constitution) specifically to accommodate those who are mentally disordered?

I’m not even dignifying the assertion that I am mentally ill for being a homosexual woman, with a response.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I’m not even dignifying the assertion that I am mentally ill for being a homosexual woman, with a response.

so I take it you also are not going to dignify the Catechism of the Catholic Church with a response.

*2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. *

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Maybe against your god, but what about my god who happens to be gay?

Who is your god? Please cite chapter and verse where your god says he/she is gay.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

But gay marriage has nothing to do with hedonism or homosexual sex. Those things are already legal. Gay marriage doesn’t change the legality of gays living together, or sleeping together, or marching in parades.

Of course they can live or sleep together. Who is going to stop them?

Why does a disordered mental attraction need the protection of the Constitution? Does alcoholism or drug addiction need the protection of the Constitution. Does a pedophile need the protection of the Constitution? Does a brother marrying his sister, or a mother marrying her son need the protection of the Constitution?

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Who is your god? Please cite chapter and verse where your god says he/she is gay.

Oh, no, I don’t reach that assertion from simple dogma. I define God as the entity which has all great-making properties, and consider gayness a great-making property.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Of course they can live or sleep together. Who is going to stop them?

Why does a disordered mental attraction need the protection of the Constitution? Does alcoholism or drug addiction need the protection of the Constitution. Does a pedophile need the protection of the Constitution? Does a brother marrying his sister, or a mother marrying her son need the protection of the Constitution?

Anyone who wants free exercise of their ideology needs the protection of the Constitution. The Constitution isn’t just about protecting you from other people’s ideology, it is also about protecting other people from your ideology.

As I said in my other post, I wonder which of the real effects of gay marriage you find so morally abhorrent. I strongly suspect it is the tax-free transfer of wealth between spouses. Just think of it. A women able to give money to her female “spouse” upon death, without taxation! Isn’t it obvious that God designed the tax system such that this arrangement is a violation of “natural tax law?”

 

[Murmurs]

so I take it you also are not going to dignify the Catechism of the Catholic Church with a response.

*2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. *

Well if you insist…

The CCC in no way whatsoever says that homosexuality itself is a mental illness, disorder, or anything of the sort. Two short, key points:

1. “Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained”

I.e. no one, including the Church, really knows why people are gay (btw other animals besides humans display homosexual bonding). The CCC is also not entirely correct to imply that it’s only psychological, because sexual attraction clearly is also physiological, but I don’t wish to split hairs at this point.

1. “Homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered”

This does not mean that homosexuals are in any way disordered. To say so, in fact, would be practically heretical as it would imply God was/is/could be in some way less than loving in our creation (in my opinion anyway). What the catechism does say, however, is that homosexual acts are disordered. Which is to say, sexual behaviour between two people of the same gender.

I might disagree with the catechism’s assertion (I would, being a gay woman ), but I can’t not but follow what it clearly states. However, unless there’s a Secret Appendix to the Catechism that I don’t know about, not even the Roman Catholic Church has stooped so far as to suggest that gay people are mentally ill. Truth is, we just don’t understand.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Oh, no, I don’t reach that assertion from simple dogma. I define God as the entity which has all great-making properties, and consider gayness a great-making property.

This is not religion . This is self flattery. Making God in your own image and likeness.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

As I said in my other post, I wonder which of the real effects of gay marriage you find so morally abhorrent. I strongly suspect it is the tax-free transfer of wealth between spouses. Just think of it. A women able to give money to her female “spouse” upon death, without taxation! Isn’t it obvious that God designed the tax system such that this arrangement is a violation of “natural tax law?”

This is silly-putty logic.

The real effect of same-sex marriage is that it elevates sodomy to a sacrament.

More silly-putty logic.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

Sure But a Catholic can as well.

Absolutely! Every word you say is pure gold. Thank you for your contribution. And best wishes to you in your life.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Well if you insist…

I.e. no one, including the Church, really knows why people are gay (btw other animals besides humans display homosexual bonding). The CCC is also not entirely correct to imply that it’s only psychological, because sexual attraction clearly is also physiological, but I don’t wish to split hairs at this point.

This does not mean that homosexuals are in any way disordered. To say so, in fact, would be practically heretical as it would imply God was/is/could be in some way less than loving in our creation (in my opinion anyway). What the catechism does say, however, is that homosexual acts are disordered. Which is to say, sexual behaviour between two people of the same gender.

I might disagree with the catechism’s assertion (I would, being a gay woman ), but I can’t not but follow what it clearly states. However, unless there’s a Secret Appendix to the Catechism that I don’t know about, not even the Roman Catholic Church has stooped so far as to suggest that gay people are mentally ill. Truth is, we just don’t understand.

I’m guessing you also think the Church teaches same-sex sodomy is O.K. and you don’t have to confess it.

Then I guess you’ll have to say the lesson of Sodom and Gomorrah is null and void?

And you’ll have to say St. Paul’s letter to the Romans on the subject of same-sex sodomy is balderdash?

 

[JapaneseKappa]

This is silly-putty logic.

The real effect of same-sex marriage is that it elevates sodomy to a sacrament.

More silly-putty logic.

So you’re telling me that the CC recognizes civil marriages as sacramental? That is news to me.